Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts

Thursday, June 19, 2008

randomness

Weird dreams (can't remember any today, but I remember waking up last night thinking WTF?!)
Work frustration (more evidence that SysAdmin is just bluffing his way through stuff.)
New partnership (a friend at work and I are going to work together on something.)
Nice weather (even the thunderstorms have been cool!)
Sore neck (not sure what the heck this is about, but I have had a sore neck from sleeping for days.)
New Nine Inch Nails album (The Slip - WOOT!)
Co-worker rants (my co-worker came at me this morning with a fistful of rants, with which I sympathize, but it was just discouraging.)
Mountain Dew Voltage is ok, nothing great (my sweetie got a free 12 pack.)
New bras rock (I feel buoyant.)
Lots of things to do in and to my house - need to organize them tonight (yeah, that.)
Reflecting on fun from the weekend (SKRF - had a great time and lots of fun and I am oddly looking forward to the event even though I am scripting.)
A helpful lesson in terminal services (from a geek friend - he taught me stuff that was VITAL and just cleared a whole bunch up for me!)
A disappointing answer (my job position does not require a salary revaluation because we are in line with the other IT positions here.)
Feeling hungry (I think it's time for lunch!)

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Feeling Hot Hot Hot!

This weekend I went to the Silver Kingdom Renaissance Festival, where I helped out as a volunteer all weekend.

Yes - it was in the 90's.
Yes - it was crazy ass humid and unbearably hot and sweaty both days.

But, it was also fun! The faire is larger than I had thought it was. There were about 30 vendors, give or take, and they had a nice variety of stuff. There were 3 or 4 costume vendors, 3 leather shops who all catered to larpers, a generic silver jewelry place, yard ornaments, tibetan items, eastern oddities and flint lock rifles, henna tattoos, gel candles, fantasy/medieval art prints, wool works, and a few others that I don't recall at the moment. There was a "Children's Garden" which basically has some games for the kids - beanbag throw, ring toss, fight the dragon, and an obstacle course! Plus drawing and coloring if they want. Fun for the kiddies. And, being a LARP faire, a boffer combat tourney.

I had a great time! It was wicked, hellish hot. Hot like drink a bottle of water an hour hot. So hot you didn't want to eat, but if you didn't eat something you would drop. We had two people leave by ambulance Saturday. The mudman, who was dehydrated, and a patron, who had given blood that morning (and appropriately said she felt pretty stupid as they were waiting for the ambulance to arrive.) So the next day water was available EVERYWHERE and people were actively being encouraged to wear sunscreen, take a break, have some water, etc. Fortunately there were no incidents, though an "almost" one with one of the Lione folk.

I bought a bear. A teddy bear. A Celtic bear, with wode on half his face, holding a longsword and buckler and wearing plaid pants! He is my leetle 'Braveheart Bear' now. :-) SO very cute, I just had to have him. There was some interesting leather armor pieces and sword holders and bracers at one of the booths. But every time I look at leather, I just think, "But Geof could make me that..." and I don't buy it. So methinks I need to talk to him about making me some shit. Bracers and/or a pauldron for now, another bat-utility belt later when I have lost some weight.

When I was looking through my shit for some costume accessories to bring along Sunday (I went home to get a few things and sleep in MY bed with my sweetie and my puppies, not in a sweaty bunk room with 10 other sweaty people...) I found my old bat-utility belt that he made for me. I wrapped it around myself and it was clear just how much I have gained. No way could I have even gotten the belts closed. *heavy sigh* I want to be determined to lose weight. I really want to lose it and I want to stay determined and actually take action and KEEP on the wagon! I think that will be a subject tonight with my therapist.

I will be going to the renfair again this weekend to help out, though my roles will be a bit more structured this weekend. This past weekend they apparently did not expect me at all. So I kind of floated and helped out where needed. This weekend I will be in the green room and the tavern. I hope I don't have to actually COOK. I would rather serve and clean than cook. We shall see....

In the meantime, I am primed for some serious thunderstorms to come and take away this ridiculous weather! I am all for saving the planet and controlling global warming, but I would be so very unhappy if I had to work outside in this heat all day every day!

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

sunburn and chocolate cake

Posted to my LJ on April 21st, 2008 at 4:15 pm

I had a TON OF FUN this weekend! WOOOOO! I also had some serious conversation, which is nice, and my brain needs it as well. So it was a good balance of the weekend.

I went to End Of Seasons (Lione) and scripted. Got there as the sun was setting, which is nice and early. It was a nice and easy way to slip back into scripting as I knew I was leaving sometime saturday night to go up and stay with Anya for a brunch on Sunday. So I didn't have to pack the world. Got up there and saw several people I had not seen in some time - yay! Did the scripty thing. Did the hidey thing too, but got over that. Journaled a bit about it though. Maybe I will have an epiphany one of these days - even a small one would be nice. :-) Went to bed with everyone else at about 3:00 am. Watched a little of my new Christian Bale movie - Rescue Dawn. Rough movie. Vietnam POW. Ugh! Next morning, got up for breakfast (yay waffle maker!!) Then did the scripty thing for several hours. Took a much needed nap and did more scripty stuff. Ben was there (B not G) and so was Dell both days. It was nice to see him in a non-playing situation where we could take a few minutes to catch up on life. Like, how's your new infant son?! How is life with a baby and two dogs?! Heh. So that was a welcome thing. Puke showed up too, which I didn't know he had been doing lately. So I was pretty floored about that as well. And I got to see Brandy and Eric as well, who came Saturday to re-build a much-needed gate prop (yep, glad I wasn't playing!) So I did a LOT of catching up with long-time friends. Got to see and hang with Megan as well, which rocked!

Faith and I left for Anya's house at dinnertime. In hindsight, a poor choice, as we were both basically ravenous when we got to Anya's. She said we were like gremlins when we got there. Heh, I wasn't seeing it because I was hungry, but looking back, yeah we were! We hugged and kissed and then stormed the kitchen for leftovers! After eating, the hanging (and showering) began. We hung out casual-like, and had strawberry shortcake for dessert-YUM! We just had girl talk time all evening until our eyelids were drooping and sleep was necessary.

Next morning the mad morning rush was on to get ready and get kids, mother, BB, me and Faith out of the house on time for Buffy's surprise brunch, which was a total success! She was honestly surprised - YESSSS!! We were sure someone had spilled the beans (heh) to her or that she would see the cars in the parking lot. She did not, so we were victorious! A few unexpected faces were there, so that was nice. Got to see Gene and Shell, Rob, Janie, Karl and Allie, Caleb, Cliffy, Jim Pic, April's brother Evan and his wife and, of course, April and Shaun. Shaun's family was also there and that was where the kids had stayed the night before. We had a fine, brunchy time, while desperately missing the Chocolate Fountain, which was apparently out of order (damn them - don't they know that was why we did this?!) There were many stories and laughs and giggles. The kids did magic tricks for the adults. It was lots of fun!

Afterwards, we retired back to April and Shaun's house for chatting, playing wiffle baseball with the kids and lots of Radiant talk. We strong-armed Jim into coming with us, since he was without car, and Cliffy, Evan, Anya, Faith and I also went over. We sat on the deck in the sun (hence the sunburn) talking while the kids ran around the yard burning off the maple syrup and waffles. There was much talk of the next Radiant event, of food, cabin decor and who might and might not be coming. We went out to the street to see Nolan ride his bike, training-wheel-free. He was great and you couldn't tell he had only learned the previous day. After a couple of hours Shaun and Cliffy left with Jim to take him home and go buy a phone for Shaun. Not long after that, BB also left, so that we girls could have girl time, which was what the brunch originally started out as.

We hung out for a little while and then April went inside. She came out with chocolate cake (with that gooey, fudgy filling) and four forks. WOOO! I actually said, "Now THIS is girl time!!" So we sat talking and ate the rest of the cake together. It was great! There were various mini-melodramas among the kids - who got whom upset, we were mean for laughing at them (we weren't), could we go to the park, knee scrapes, whining and cajoling. Finally, we went to the park closeby for about 45 minutes, let the kids burn off more energy and then went back to the house. Anya, Faith and I took off for Anya's house and then Faith drove me home.

All in all, a fun-filled weekend with friends. Overdue, for sure. And fulfilling as well. Smoochies to my peeps!!

weather...so...nice...clawing...eyes...out...to...get...out...of...here

Posted to my LJ on April 18th, 2008 at 4:11 pm

I went out this morning to walk the poochies and did not need, nor want, a sweater, jacket, or other additional layer. WOO!!!!

Finally, a coat-free day! Oh yeah!

So now, here I sit. At 4:12 pm on a Friday. Friday of a larp event. Where the weather is actually going to be decent (meaning not a blizzard, hurricane or arctic freeze). And I am DYINGTOGETOUTOFHEREGODDAMMIT!!!!

On a totally unrelated note, I think that I have no melanin in my legs. I think this because even the Jergens lotion that you put on and get a gradual gentle tan over several days is NOT BRINGING OUT ANY DAMN COLOR ON THEM!

(Have I used quite enough caps and exclamation points? I'm not done yet, folks!)

Not that my legs are pretty, because they aren't. And by not pretty I mean, I have a terrible scratching habit and they are laden with scars because of it. So it's not like I want to wear a short skirt or anything. I would, however, like to wear one of the 3 pairs of pants I have that are slightly cropped. I would like to wear them without applying makeup on my lower legs, which it looks like I will have to do anyway, or wear socks. I mean, come on folks! InStyle magazine recommended this stuff as a "Beauty Best Buy" in their annual '135 Best Beauty Buys' issue!! I even bought the MEDIUM skin tone one, because I am so damn pale!

Nothing.

Grumble.

4:21 now. Feet tapping restlessly.

On another totally unrelated note, I wish I had a CLUE about LJ templates and how to design one, or understand ANYTHING about them other than, "hey, that looks cute." I was looking at the templates again today to see about changing mine again and I just have no idea what it all means. There is a template NAME, but then there is a STYLE NAME that the template is created for, and there is a person who created it. You go into the create section and there are pages of stuff about the styles and I assume that is all how to make one information. But I haven't got the slightest idea what it all means. So for those of you that know me and think I am all that and a bag of chips on computers, not so.

Okay, I am going to get off here, get my shit together, hope SysAdmin guy decides to leave early as the BossGuy has already left and goddamnit it's Friday and its' NICE OUTSIDE!!

Bye, ya'll!!

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

The weather has been disappointing this weekend. We were hoping to have a nice sunny afternoon to be able to take the pooches to the dog park. We took them anyway yesterday, and they ended up having a fine old time and thoroughly tiring themselves out. But the small dog side of the park was woefully empty with only three other dogs in it the whole time we were there. The big dog side was hopping with probably as many as twenty and as few as fifteen dogs at a time in there. I even took Rogue over there to get her some play time, but no one paid her any mind and for some reason, she just stood around sniffing the ground rather than play. So I brought her back over to the small dog side and then another person showed up with their puppy that my pooches played with the rest of the time we were there. It was a Lhasa-poo and was grey and awfully cute. Rogue had a fine time chasing him around and rolling him a few times. Then Storm ran after them too and there was much running and charging each other. It was cuteness.

Today's weather was just as disappointing. Just blah out there. I headed out to get the paper and refill my allergy med. But came back home and crawled back into bed with the puppies to snuggle some more.

I have these lists in my head of things to do around the house. But then I have this nagging, why bother, feeling. Half the things I want to list cost money that I don't have to spare. The other half, I just don't have the energy or motivation to do. I dunno. I am going to make the list this week. I will see what I can do with it.

Speaking of stuff to do, I need to put the laundry in the dryer. Sorry for the intrusion of the mundane, but it's gotta get done.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

whipping wind

Posted to my LJ on March 6th, 2008 at 10:56 pm

March coming in like a lion once again. I went out to give my pups a bathroom break and ended up taking them on a nice walk because it was so damn warm outside! This weather is bizarre. It was pouring rain since last night around 9pm. Then today, it got very warm, must have been almost 60 degrees. The wind has been so loud it's like a truck driving by the house.

I can't wait for spring to be here in full force. I would like to put my winter coat away and think about painting my toenails again!

Time for some puppy snuggling and sleep!

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Springy

The weather, that is. Today was, by far, the warmest day since the end of Autumn. Yay! Today it definitely felt like spring was breaking through.

And then it began to rain. Oh well. But it's still very mild out. Gonna get cold again tomorrow night again. C'mon spring!!!

So...I am now on Facebook. I was on it for all of an hour today maybe. I already LOVE it one-hundred-billion times more than MySpace, which sucks giant ass. MySpace has a million ads, it is confusing, non-intuitive, poorly organized and, to top it all off, UGLY (if you don't know CSS and have the ability/time/interest to design your own custom page.) Plus, I believe MySpace has adware or spyware for some of their advertisers. They suck. Facebook wins! I will probably keep my MySpace login; it already directs people away from there to my LJ or Blogger page. I state right there on my page that I don't use it.

The WAY I got on facebook is that my old friend Lars is on there and invited my friend Heather. She invited me and now I have 5 friends on there already: Lars, Heather, Nick, my niece and an old lione friend. I am going to tell anyone I know on MySpace to get themselves a Facebook login and drop MySpace. Woo!

Now, I shall settle in to watch some American Idol!! Guilty pleasure! Love this show!

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Prissiest dog ever!

The pooch pictured below is, without question, the prissiest dog in history. Yesterday it snowed and then freezing rain fell on the snow for another several hours. So there is this nice white covering everywhere, but it is crusted over so that when you walk on it, it breaks and crunches loudly.



So we go out to get the mail. It's nasty out, so I am thinking I will spare the dogs the whole walk and just get them out on the lawn to do their business. They both pee. Rogue CLEARLY has to poop (we call it extendo-butt) but she is just walking around on the ice crust, falling through with every step and hating it, looking desperately for a place to poop, but not settling on one. We are out there for 20 minutes and nothing! So we go back inside, I throw on the snow boots, put on their little coats and we go for the full walk. Stormy is all excited, she loves being outside, almost no matter what the weather. Rogue is clearly on a mission, she is trotting down the block to "the spot"; the spot where we pretty much always poop. However, the whole world is covered with this same crusty snow stuff. Everywhere. She walks on one lawn and then another and another and finds it everywhere. Well, she is having none of this and will NOT settle on a place to poop. We are out there another 25 minutes before she finally agrees to poop! She just gets up on a lawn and does it, after realizing that, sheesh, this stuff is everywhere!!

We go back inside and get treats. Most exhausting walk ever. I never thought I would have to be a cheerleader for my dog to poop!

Friday, February 22, 2008

Half day for me - woot!

I had already planned to leave work early if the snow actually picked up the way the news said it would. Well, it did and the city was telling employers to let non-essential personnel leave work. And there was a parking ban as of 12:00 noon in the city, so Brown sent out an e-mail to all staff and faculty that people could go home. I left at 1:00 pm and got home in a reasonable time, no traffic or anything. Fortunately, the way I traveled I didn't hit any accidents either. The roads weren't great, but I got home fine.

It was pretty cool for a change to have something to be happy about related to work. No stress, no pressure, just being allowed to go home. Yay!

So I came home and went to the store with my sweetie for weekly food shopping. After that, I took a nice nap with my puppies in the warm bed. Mmmmmm.

There was a possibilty of dinner with friends, but of course, the snow got in the way of that. No problem. A nice night vegging out at home was definitely satisfactory after this week. :-)

Anyway, hitting the sack now.

EDIT: Just took the dogs out for the final time tonight. This is the WORST kind of weather! YUCK! Started this morning as light fluffy snow and then stopped and then picked up again around noon as more fluffy snow, but LOTS of it. Got home and was able to shovel simply by pushing it with the shovel, it was so fluffy. Got out of the supermarket and it was freezing rain. I think it has been doing that since then. So now all the snow is still there, but it is all crusted over with ice. And everything else is covered in a layer of ice. GREAT! YUK!

Saturday, February 16, 2008

"white-knuckling" it through this week...

Posted to my LJ on Feb. 15th, 2008 at 11:45 PM


I have had my head down making my way through this week a step at a time. It really does feel like weeks since I wrote that post Tuesday. Saw my doc Tuesday and instead of trying a different med, we are upping the dose for a test period to see if anything changes. Saw my therapist that night. I need to start journaling (privately, sorry) about my sessions so I actually THINK about things during the week. I am realizing that I have this awful habit of talking about stuff that's important and then I don't think about it again until 5 minutes before my next appointment. I do it outside of therapy and have for years. My family did it all the time. Not insidiously, like the white elephant in the room kind of not dealing with it. Just going on and kind of rolling over it like roadkill. Yep, that's the metaphor.

SysAdmin guy at work has been less outright annoying this week. I am taking it at face value. Is he trying to get along better with me and my co-worker? Or is he actually being slightly more personable? Who can tell - the man has the personality of a bag of hair.

I got to configure new laptops for other people this week. I realized I am kind of annoyed that everyone else in IT is getting one except me and my co-worker.

Manager guy was pretty much not around all week because he was in a conference room with a guy from our software vendor all week. That was nice. I hate having two bosses. Fortunately, they don't really give me conflicting instruction, but sometimes the both tell me to do the same thing, which is very annoying. Yes, I know. My other boss already told me.

This week was filled with puppy poop and puppy vomit. My pooches were both not feeling well and took it out on the house. I shall be shampooing some carpet as soon as I am able (again, just did it last week before we got the house appraised.)

The appraiser came Wednesday morning. After it SNOWED THREE INCHES overnight. Which is good, because all the leaves on the lawn were covered. It's good she was not too late, because just an hour after she came, it began POURING RAIN for the rest of the day, melting all the snow. At work, we had that rain on the roof noise all afternoon.

Thursday began the poop explosion, with Storm starting off the poop-splosion. The next morning, she seemed better and ate normally. Then it was Rogue's turn. Coming home to it was not fun for my sweetie. Not at all. Then Thursday night (that would be last night) Storm began the vomiting. She did not eat dinner at all, and began vomiting at about 6:30 and proceeded to do so about 8 times througout the night. She got very listless and lethargic and couldn't get comfortable to sleep for hours at a time. So I was up with her on my chest for several hours last night, stroking her fur, trying to comfort her a little. Then this morning, more diarrhea and so it was time to go to the vet. I could not get her an appointment at my regular vet, so I went to the Emergency Animal Hospital (and I am very happy there IS one here...) and asked the attendant what she thought (after finding out that just being SEEN is over $100 dollars!) We talked about it and she thought she would be okay and was not in an emergency state. So I called my vet and got on the waiting list to go in later today. As it turned out, she slept a few hours and then my sweetie called me and told me she was almost good as new. Playing with Rogue, jumping around the room, very interested in her food again...YAY!!! So I cancelled the appointment, we don't need to go unless she has a relapse.

The kicker to all this poop and vomit is that our washing machine is busted and we are waiting for the tax return to get a new one. So we will have to haul almost all of the bedclothes in the house to the laundromat to get washed! \m/

Went to work and had a nutty crazy day. Then came home and had to yell at the mortgage company for poor record keeping.

And to top it all off, I am getting sick. I have a cough, my chest feels tight and I have been getting achier (more achy?) since I got home. My eyes feel hot and that probably means I have a fever.

This week has been long. Very long.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Snow and more snow

Posted to my LJ on January 15th, 2008 at 11:54 PM

Fortunately, it did not stick that well. But well enough in the morning that I stayed home and worked from here. We did get a lot, about 5-6 inches of heavy wet stuff. It stuck to everything and I have to say when it looks like this is when I love it the most. I love when there is snow all over everything, the trees, the bushes, the houses and roofs...everything. It looks so pretty.

I stayed in though. Did my work like a good girl and then saw 3:10 to Yuma which my sweetie rented. I liked it. A little depressing, but a good western and I liked the characters.

And today, I was home sick. My sinuses were doing something awful to my head and so I stayed in bed all day. Blah. I hope the week gets better.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

New England Weather

Just to prove the volatile nature of New England weather, I was POSITIVE when we got the snow on Dec 13th and 16th, about a foot between both storms, that it would stay around all winter. I told my family that, I expressed that opinion to my sweetie...all of it.

I drive to work today and there are only traces that there was even snow on the ground. Two weeks ago it was hard to drive or park on any local street here.

So goes the saying, "If you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes."